


we'll build a den

by FandomTrash24601



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (A child. NO.), Archgriffins, Armor, Aromantic, Background Relationships, Bears, Bigotry & Prejudice, Chance Meetings, Children, Chivalry, Crushes, Developing Relationship, Emotionally Repressed, Emotions, Eventual Fluff, First Meetings, Fluff and Humor, Friends With Benefits, Harm to Children, Horses, I have no self control, I tagged this mature just to be on the safe side but it's actually pretty tame, Inspired by The Accidental Warlord and His Pack Series - inexplicifics, It's barely there really, Meet-Cute, Mild Smut, Minor Injuries, Monsters, Multi, Non-Explicit Sex, OH i should probably tag inex huh, Pre-Relationship, Queerplatonic Relationships, Relationship Negotiation, Reunions, Rivers, School of the Bear, Self-Esteem Issues, Stuffed Toys, Witchers are afraid of tiny women okay, asshole innkeepers, can I use that tag if it's not their first meeting that's cute, discussion of mutagens, everyone say RIP for Desmon's armor, fuck it, how else do you woo a woman besides saving her from drowning, i'm sorry i had to, it performed its duty admirably, no beta we die like renfri, playfully attempting to drown one's consort, respect women juice, skirts and water don't mix guys, stretch marks, the infamous hot springs make an appearance, uhh, what did you guys expect with Witchers smh, what do I even tag wtf, yeah there we go that's kind of important to clarify
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:21:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26805034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomTrash24601/pseuds/FandomTrash24601
Summary: His breath catches in his throat when he makes it to the archgriffins’ main cave. It’s not the bones—still clung to by chunks of rotten meat—that disturb him, nor the two little skulls that he can see. It’s the scent of a human child—alive, and very, very scared.
Relationships: Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Original Witcher Character(s)/Original Female Character(s), mentioned geralt/jaskier - Relationship, mentioned geralt/jaskier/eskel
Comments: 117
Kudos: 698
Collections: Inspired by inexplicific Accidental Warlord AU, Wasn't Quite Expecting This (But I Loved It)





	we'll build a den

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [With a Conquering Air](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23273713) by [inexplicifics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics). 



A griffin, the townsfolk had said. Just a griffin.

How, Desmon wonders, is it possible for an entire town to mistake a nest of archgriffins for one solitary griffin of the ordinary type? One griffin wouldn’t be able to strip the town of their livestock and several children in such a short period of time, and so he had been wary of misinformation, but this is just—It’s gross neglect, is what it is. If he makes it out of this alive, he’s not coming back in this direction for at least a decade.

There’s a significant risk that the School of the Bear will shortly find itself one Witcher south of standard. He’s lost his armor and his gambeson, or more accurately stripped it from himself in haste when one of the damn things caught him directly in the chest with a spread of acid. It had been concentrated enough to eat right through both layers, leaving his less-affected gambeson still unusable. He has nothing but a shirt and is acutely aware that one mistake will be the death of him.

He has one crossbow bolt left, and there’s one archgriffin still flying about. If he doesn’t make this shot, he’s going to have to try and take it on with just his sword and his signs, armorless. The odds of his survival if he has to resort to manually fighting it… But that’s just the life of a Witcher, isn’t it? There’s no use in complaining. If he dies with acid eating his lungs away, then that’s how he dies.

But his luck is good, and the crossbow bolt sinks neatly into its eyesocket. The thing plummets, screeching, to land among its brethren, and Desmon lets out a slow sigh of relief. All that’s left for him to do is harvest all the sellable parts. If he can convince the alderman to up the price—one griffin is not at _all_ comparable to six archgriffins—and sell these parts, too, he might just have a profitable day on his hands.

The harvesting takes a long time since he has to be careful to avoid any more acid, but at long last he stands with blood-soaked arms and a sack of valuable body parts tied to his horse. He uses his ruined gambeson to wipe the worst of the blood from his arms and sighs at the remains of it. That’s going to cost a lot to replace, what with his sheer amount of fabric a Bear’s gambeson requires.

Desmon stares at the archgriffin nest, a little ways off and hidden halfway up a small cliff. He makes his way to the caves to look for little bones. It’s only proper to burn the remains of the stolen children, should he find any, just as a precaution. He really doesn’t want to come back here, but it’ll feel like his job to take care of should any of the children return as spirits.

His breath catches in his throat when he makes it to the archgriffins’ main cave. It’s not the bones—still clung to by chunks of rotten meat—that disturb him, nor the two little skulls that he can see. It’s the scent of a human child— _alive,_ and very, very scared.

How the fuck did one of the children manage to survive being taken by archgriffins?

“Hello?” he asks, letting his voice echo through the cave. “The monsters are dead now. You can come out.”

He picks his way through the field of bone and rot to the crevice from which fear pours like a waterfall. Although he wants to scoop the child right out, he stands several feet away to let them see him. He’s hardly what anyone would call emotionally competent, but all Witchers are at least somewhat capable of dealing with frightened humans regardless of their age.

“You’ve been very brave,” he says. “The monsters are dead now—you’re safe. Can you come out of there, please?”

The child, a girl from what he can see, is wedged far back in a crevice too small for an archgriffin and just too deep for their acid to reach her. The packed dirt and stone just inches from her little toes are soaked in acid, though, pocked and cavernous. He doesn’t actually know if she can get out; she’d have to crawl over it.

“Actually, wait,” he says. “Let me put something down to protect your skin.”

There’s nothing just laying around the cave, but his shirt should do well enough. He steps out of sight of the crevice first so that his scars don’t scare the girl. Thankfully his horse isn’t all the way in town; arriving shirtless and carrying a female child will likely get him stoned instead of paid.

“Here.” He steps back into her line of sight, but stays back from the entrance. “May I step closer? I just want to put this down so you don’t hurt yourself on the acid.”

At last, a very small nod. He keeps his steps light and his movements slow as he steps forward, leaning into the crevice as best he can to lay his shirt over the acid-splattered floor. Once that’s done, he steps back.

“You’re doing good,” he coaxes. “Can you come on out for me? Quickly, now, before the acid eats the shirt away.”

She clambers inelegantly over the shirt, barely big enough to get out, but her movements bring with them the sweeping scent of pain and she starts to cry. Desmon feels himself locking up; Bears, as a general rule, aren’t good with emotions. They’re the worst School when it comes to emotions, actually, thanks to whatever was in their mutagens. He’s never comforted a crying child once in his life except perhaps when calming down young’uns just after they’d been brought to be trained as Bears. But even then, they were boys, and all that was required of him was never more than a halfhearted, “It’s not that bad; you get food every day.” The situations could hardly be more different.

It’s only when she makes it out of the crevice that Desmon realizes why she’s crying. On her left side, spilling over from her back, is an acid burn that’s eaten through both clothing and flesh. The poor thing must’ve been in agony this entire time, but Desmon knows enough about regular humans to know that adrenaline can override instincts like pain.

He crouches down to be nearer to her level, running on blind guesses. “Can I carry you back to your home? It’s a long way for someone to walk with bare feet.”

She wrings her little hands together, steel-gray eyes shiny with tears. Her hair, the color of midnight, is greasy and in disarray. She’s been here a while; how long has it been since she ate? Likely too long, not that he knows much of anything about human children.

When she nods, he lets out a breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. He’s not quite sure how to hold her when she’s so injured, but ends up holding her against his front, arms folded under her rear end while she wraps her own around his neck. This way, nothing touches her back and she doesn’t spill those sharp-smelling tears.

They have to walk past the slaughtered archgriffins to get to Desmon’s horse, sheltered safely under tree cover. It’s certainly not the kind of thing that children should be seeing—certainly not one who can’t be any older than five—and so Desmon very carefully moves one arm from beneath her to press her face into his shoulder.

“You shouldn’t be looking at this,” he rumbles.

She makes a tiny little humming noise but doesn’t fight him.

When they make it back to Desmon’s bay gelding, he sets the girl down. She clings to his leg as he pulls his shirt on and then almost immediately raises her arms to be lifted again. It’s...startling. A normal human child would reek of fear in the face of his bulk and his eerie eyes, but she keeps herself curled around Desmon’s massive chest as best she can. When she tucks her tiny little head under his chin, he realizes that he can’t remember the last time a child trusted him. Probably before he underwent the Trials, when he still looked human.

Afternoon is turning over to evening when they trudge back into town. Desmon makes his way first to the healer’s home, which he remembers passing earlier thanks to its distinctively medicinal scent.

The healer is a sturdy-looking woman with olive skin and thick black hair. She looks, curiously enough, a lot like the girl in his arms. It’s certainly a familial resemblance; when the healer sees who he carries she starts to weep, pulling the girl from Desmon’s arms with cries of, “My baby, oh my baby!” The girl just curls tightly around her mother and weeps.

“She’s burned,” Desmon says at last, shifting awkwardly on his big feet. “Acid, on her left side and her back.”

“She—Oh, darling, come on and let me help you with that.” The woman ushers the girl further inside, turning a tear-stained face to where Desmon still hovers in the doorway. “I can’t thank you enough for bringing her back to me. The other children, did…?”

He shakes his head. “Just her.”

A few more tears run down the healer’s cheeks. “Well,” she says softly. “The gods have blessed me today, at least. I thank you. There has to be some way I can repay you—”

“No, no.”

“I insist,” she says. “You saved my daughter’s life; that is a debt I cannot repay.”

“I’m only doing my job.”

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be paid for it,” the healer says.

“I… My armor and gambeson. They were ruined by the acid.”

“I’ll get you new armor, I assure you,” the healer vows. “Thank you again.”

Her gratitude is almost uncomfortable in its foreignness. Humans offer perfunctory thanks, and stiff him on payment, and recoil in fear or spit in his drink even after he’s saved all of their miserable lives. They don’t cry and demand to repay him for doing the job he was physically designed to do.

“‘Course,” he says, rather than voice any of his discomfort. “Have a nice night.”

The healer offers him a genuine smile, radiant enough to light up the room; a mother through and through. “You as well.”

He heads to the alderman’s next, carrying the sack and its contents. He isn’t expecting a welcome reception; he had noticed that his food had been spit on the previous evening. The alderman’s face is pinched when he swings the door open, and only grows more bitter when his beady eyes land on Desmon.

“Is it dead?” he asks.

 _“They_ are dead, yes,” Desmon says. “The six archgriffins. I believe I’m due a contract negotiation.”

The alderman sputters indignantly. “You signed—”

“A contract calling for the death of one griffin. Archgriffins spit acid. And there were six of them.” He doesn’t like to look more intimidating than necessary, but he leans fully into this. “So let’s say you multiply the price by seven.”

 _“Seven?_ You said there were six!”

“I also said they spit acid. I’m being generous, here; I could easily demand ten times the price. Would you prefer that?”

The alderman bares his teeth like he could possibly intimidate a Witcher. “I don’t believe your numbers; I want proof.”

Desmon delights in pulling the bloody feet from the satchel and dropping them on the alderman’s doorstep. There are twelve of them, the back feet of all six archgriffins. The alderman sniffs down at them.

“I see twelve feet. That’s three beasts.”

So this is one of those bastards, huh? Fucking hells.

“They’re only the back feet. That’s six.”

“I don’t tolerate liars in my village, mutant,” the alderman snaps. “For lying, I’ll be paying you for two.”

Desmon manages, through a truly painful amount of talking and some false triteness that makes his skin crawl, to bump the price up to three normal griffins. It’ll be enough to keep him in this town—or nearby, at least—until the healer can keep her promise about his armor and gambeson. With the other archgriffin parts to sell, he might even reap a semi-reasonable profit. But just barely.

He manages to hunt down an interested buyer before everyone turns in for the night, and at least they have no problem forking over money for such rare goods. It makes Desmon dislike humans just a little bit less, and he makes his way back to the inn feeling a little less surly than usual.

But when he’s nearly there, he runs across a teenage girl leading a donkey through the streets. She almost walks right into him, walking backwards in an effort to yank the poor beast forward, and when she notices that he’s not human she goes pale. The smell of fear is sharp, and he has to focus so as not to scrunch up his face and frighten her more. He knows what she sees; long hair the color of a grizzly’s coat tied up into a knot, all the better to reveal his sickly yellow eyes and the twisted, shiny scar that cuts across the bridge of his nose and tears his left cheek in half. Beyond all that, he’s easily three times her size.

He steps around the girl, refusing to feel anything at all about the way humans see him, and continues on towards the inn. The place reeks of piss-poor ale and food that hovers just on the edge of too-ripe, but that’s par for the course when it comes to inns that Witchers can afford. He considers the money he has and asks for a basin of fresh water instead of a bath, not certain they’d comply even if he were to ask. Even still, the innkeeper looks like he wants to refuse.

Since the hunt was a relatively clean one, Desmon doesn’t bother with anything more than wiping himself down. His hands are still tinted red by the time he’s done, but it’s good enough. He sets the little basin aside and wonders if he’s willing to pay for food that’s been spat in or whether he wants to eat his rations instead.

He opts for eating some jerky and hard tack, watching the sun set over a far hill and running through tomorrow’s logistics. First he’ll inquire as to how long it’ll take for him to get new armor, which will determine whether he stays another night in the inn or camps in the woods for a week. Then he’ll go back to the archgriffin’s nest and build a pyre for the two children who hadn’t made it back. After that he’ll either sit in the inn sharpening his swords or in a camp in the woods.

It takes three days for him to get his new armor, and he spends his time in the woods. The innkeeper had looked downright hostile at the thought of hosting a Witcher for another night, and Desmon doesn’t like social interaction anyway. If he can spend less time than necessary near other people, he will.

On the third afternoon—a dreary one, like the last three—he picks up his new armor and gambeson. He’d salvaged what he could of his old gear to be used for measurements, and it fits like a glove. The healer hands them over to him with a smile that grows brighter when it fits.

“My thanks,” he says, the words clumsy in his mouth.

She waves it off. “Oh, no, my thanks to _you.”_

“Your daughter?”

“She’s healing up nicely.” The woman’s smile shifts to something a little mischievous, and Desmon hopes it isn’t obvious that he’s very suddenly on-edge. “She has something for you, too, if you’ll have it.”

The girl comes creeping out of a back room. It’s the first time he’s seen her since returning her to her mother, and she does look much better than she had then. Her hair has been washed, for one, and her burns bandaged and covered in salve that Desmon can smell from several feet away. She shuffles slowly towards him, peering up from under dark little eyelashes. There’s something that she’s holding behind her back.

Desmon kneels down, hoping it’ll make him at least a little more approachable even if she doesn’t smell scared. He had expected her fear; braced for it, even. The fact that she’d been happy to be near him as he was rescuing her doesn’t mean shit. But it’s a welcome surprise to smell that she’s no more than nervous.

“Go on,” the mother coaxes.

“Thank you,” the girl says quietly. Her gray eyes are so dark and so bright at the same time. “Here.” Her little hand shoots out, something brown strangled by her fist. “To keep you safe.”

Desmon reaches out very gently and takes the thing she’s offering. It’s a stuffed animal, he realizes. A stuffed _bear._ The thing is very clearly well-loved, patchy in parts and with an eye come partially unstitched. It…twists something, deep inside of him.

“You’re very kind,” he says. “Are you sure you don’t need it more than me?”

She shakes her head in the wild, overdramatic way of children. “No. You fight the monsters. You need her help.”

Painfully aware of her mother watching him, Desmon cradles the raggedy little bear to his chest, near his heart. He feels foolish until he sees the brilliant, toothy smile on the girl’s face. Surely there’s nothing wrong with doing something a little silly if it makes a child happy. If it fights the horrible rumors about Witchers.

The healer and her daughter watch him leave, so he’s sure to tuck the little bear gently into one of his saddlebags, the one with clothes and not potions. So she’s comfortable, Desmon explains, and watches the girl’s face glow even brighter. There’s something small blooming in his chest, which he might otherwise call fondness. He ignores it. He ignores a lot of things.

Against all odds, the little bear stays safely in his bag. It migrates to the bottom over time as he pulls items from them, and after a month he forgets about it.

Seven months months later, Desmon returns to Haern Caduch. Fall is just edging into winter, and Desmon is looking forward to a couple of months where he won’t have to worry about negotiating prices or navigating excessive social contact.

“Good season?” is all that his brother Henryk says when they meet in the courtyard.

“Decent. You?”

“Good enough.”

It’s a relief, falling back into his natural speech. Whenever he’s out in the world he has to force himself to speak more than is comfortable, and it’s almost as good as sinking into a warm bed to be able to drop the act. Even dealing with the occasional other Witcher, should their paths cross, requires compromise. He’d run into a chatty Griffin two months back and it had been one of the most exhausting afternoons of his entire season.

Henryk takes Desmon’s horse from him in an unusually brotherly gesture, allowing Desmon to head right to his rooms and start unpacking. He dumps the bags of clothes upside down, emptying them in the easiest way possible, and is startled when something small and brown and not his clothes tumbles out with them. He bends over to pick it up, and is struck by recollection when his fingers touch the worn fabric. It doesn’t smell like the girl anymore, which is entirely expected when it spent several months buried beneath his own perpetually stinky clothes.

“Huh,” he says.

His room is small, but there’s a little shelving unit where he’s got a small collection of curiosities and knicknacks. He sets the bear on the shelves, and when it slumps over he makes the extra effort to position it so it sits upright. If someone were to ask him why, he wouldn’t be able to explain it, but he can almost see the girl’s smile again as he settles the little stuffed toy.

The next autumn, he runs into a Viper on a road outside of Carrera. The Viper twirls a knife between his fingers as he talks, looking distinctly amused as he tells Desmon that Witchers from all schools are being summoned to Kaer Morhen for the winter. One of the Wolves has come up with the idea of reunifying the Witchers, it seems, and Desmon rolls his eyes but turns north instead of continuing south. It won’t be the relaxing, isolated winter he’d hoped for, but it’ll be interesting at the very least. He anticipates that a Cat will have murdered at least one of the Manticores before the first month is out.

There’s a lot of violence. A Cat does almost kill a Manticore, but only almost, and the Vipers are ready to try and kick anybody’s asses. Desmon and the rest of the Bears stay far, far out of the way as the Wolf School’s prodigal son thrashes each and every challenger. Geralt of Rivia, his name is, he with the weird white hair and the double-dose of mutations. Desmon wouldn’t have thought it possible, and would’ve thought the Witcher would be incredibly fucked up if it had worked, but Geralt is noble enough that a running joke arises that he should’ve been a Griffin instead of a Wolf.

None of them let him hear this joke, of course, lest they find their own hide tanned by his entirely unfair speed and strength.

“This is going to be incredible,” Gerd says to him on one icy evening near the end of winter, “or it’s going to be the absolute worst thing we’ve ever done.”

“Here’s to it being the former,” Desmon says, and takes a swig of truly despicable White Gull that the Manticores had been gracious enough to distribute.

That year, Ursa the stuffed bear remains in his bags. He has his own room, but he keeps his bags packed because it doesn’t feel like home and he doesn’t want to waste time packing if these talks come to an abrupt end. At one point he has the fleeting thought that he hopes she doesn’t mind being trapped in his bag all winter. He keeps that thought buried almost as deeply as Ursa.

It’s not long before they topple the King of Kaedwen and Kaer Morhen becomes the permanent residence of all the Schools. Desmon’s new room is on a lower floor of the castle, unlike his old room, but it offers a nice view nonetheless. He pulls Ursa from his clothing bag and sets her on a shelf and the room feels just a little more like home. Kaer Morhen is nothing at all like Haern Caduch, not when it’s so full of Witchers and when carts of tribute start making their way up the trail, but even the tiniest things help.

Then the humans start to come.

And then Geralt—the fearsome White Wolf, now—acquires a _baby,_ of all things.

And there are warriors, and a cook, and a steward, and none of them seem to mind the fact that they’re surrounded by Witchers? Some of them seem to _enjoy_ it. Zofia certainly does. So does Julita, the little girl who clings to Letho like a limpet and calls him “Uncle.” The Witchers are, very suddenly, less like monsters and more like people. It feels like an undermining of some sort of natural principle.

Cirilla grows up, and Desmon comes back from a season of roaming “the Warlord’s lands” to find that they acquired a bard that smells, constantly, like lust. Geralt’s empire grows and grows.

In the spring of 1242, nearing summer, a woman makes her way to Kaer Morhen. Her village had fallen victim to an illness that had killed nearly everyone, she says, and with nowhere else to go she had figured that Kaer Morhen was as good a place as any. He’s in the courtyard when she arrives, enjoying the good weather and occupying himself by making sure that Kaer Morhen’s crossbows are all in good shape. Every Witcher in the courtyard can hear the conversation she’s having with Ivar, although he doesn’t think she knows it from the way her voice wobbles.

“You’re not afraid of Witchers?” Ivar asks.

The young woman laughs. She _laughs,_ directly into Ivar’s face! He’s never seen a human do that before. Neither has anyone else; the entire courtyard tries as subtly as possible to watch the interaction play out. Her olive-toned hands are propped on her wide hips, her dark hair shining like ink under the sunlight. She’s stunning and she’s bold, he’ll give her that.

“Of course not.” she says.

She very clearly means it; there’s not a whiff of discomfort about her, just the soft tang of old grief. Ivar leads her into the keep while the courtyard watches on.

He thinks that’ll probably be the last he sees of her for a while, considering that the workers of Kaer Morhen overwhelmingly interact with the more sociable Schools. If he sees her it’ll be only in passing.

And it is, almost; he doesn’t see her for another week and a half. He’s coming up from the kitchens after submitting a request for tart berry pies at some point in the near-ish future when he sees her coming down the stairs with an armful of trays. The stairs are slick with age and tread, and she gasps when her feet come out from beneath her. There's a horrendous rattling as the trays slip from her arms and topple down the steps. Desmon’s arms are the only thing that stops her from following them, gentle hands wrapping around her upper arm and her waist.

She’s beautifully plush in his arms, and he doesn’t want to let her go, but it would be improper for him to hold her longer than it takes for her to regain her footing. Her hair had been silky where it had brushed against him, and she smells residually like bread and the kitchens, and something sparks very faintly inside his chest.

“Oh,” she breathes, her wide gray eyes fixed on his. After a moment, her mouth splits into a bashful smile and her cheeks flush. He wants… He doesn’t know what he wants. She looks nice, is all. “Thank you.”

“It—” He shakes his head. “No need. Just instinct.”

“Well, I thank you for your instincts then. And your strength, as well; I’m not nearly as small as Lady Milena.”

“You’re not,” he agrees, taking the brief opportunity to look her up and down. She’s a heavy woman—a _sturdy_ woman. Lady Milena scares him, so little that a light breeze is liable to knock her right over. “She’s...very small.”

“Small indeed.” The woman casts a mournful look at the trays scattered at the bottom of the stairs. “Well, I ought to pick those up and get back to the kitchens, but thank you again.”

He just nods, tongue feeling too thick in his mouth.

“I’m Nedda.”

“Desmon.”

She smiles from underneath long, dark lashes, and Desmon feels that distant tightening again. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I, uh, do live here.”

She laughs like he’s said something funny and continues down the stairs, more carefully this time. Desmon waits for her to get to the bottom before he makes his way to the training grounds, itching for exercise.

There’s a Cat buddy he’s got, Jovan, and they play _Aard the Cat_ until it’s time to bathe. Jovan flips into one of the pools, dousing all the other occupants and raising a storm of complaints. Desmon shakes his head and heads for the hottest pool, occupied only by one other Witcher. Several pools down, the consort is snuggled into the Wolf’s side looking insufferably pleased with himself. Silver dangles from both of their necks and glints whenever they move.

“Sickening, isn’t it?” the other Witcher asks. A Crane, smile twisting at his mouth. “They’re just so disgustingly in love.”

“Smells nice, at least,” Desmon offers to the conversation. He hopes it’ll stop there, and the Crane at least seems to recognize this. They sit in silence until, almost collectively, the Witchers depart the baths for supper.

It’s another few days before he sees Nedda again, lingering by the edges of the training yard. He doesn’t quite believe that it’s her at first, certain that the flash of dark hair is someone else, but then he risks a full glance towards where she stands and finds that it is, in fact, her. There’s no reason that he can think of for her to be by the training yard, and he’s so distracted by the sight of her—because she’s watching _him,_ those gray eyes not sparing a glance for any other part of the yard—that his opponent almost gets the best of him.

She’s still there by the time he’s done practicing. He takes the risk and approaches her, watches the way her eyes light up. It’s confusing. Why would she be happy to see him? Sure, he saved her from falling down the stairs, but that was hardly anything exceptional.

“Hello,” she says.

“Hello,” he says. He doesn’t know what to say after that; they stand in silence for an uncomfortable amount of time.

Nedda clears her throat gently and says, “You fought wonderfully today.”

“Thank you,” he says. “Uh, is today a day off for you?”

“It is.” Her eyes sparkle when she smiles. “I haven’t yet found anything to do with my rest days; I’m unfamiliar with the entertainment of Kaer Morhen.”

“I don’t know what the humans here do,” Desmon says. “I mostly just train.”

She laughs. He doesn’t know what was funny about what he said. “I can tell.”

Her eyes drop to his chest, and he realizes with a start that her scent is tinged with lust. It’s not a scent that he associates with humans viewing his bare skin; he’s covered in stretch marks that the mutagens gifted him, marks that Witchers don’t care about but that humans tend to find distasteful. It’s a novelty to find a woman who doesn’t just tolerate them but actually finds them attractive, yet he can’t sleep with her.

Well, _technically_ he can sleep with her, but only if she initiates it. There are rules, unspoken, that all Witchers abide to, chief among them being that you don’t force yourself in any way, shape, or form on the humans of Kaer Morhen. This includes being the one to propose sexual relations, seeing as they might feel pressured into it based on the fact that any Witcher could easily overpower any human. Arousal, after all, doesn’t necessarily equal desire for any actual consummation.

“There’s, uh, a nice trail,” he says. “Human-safe.”

“Oh? Would you want to walk it with me later today? Only if you have nothing else to do, that is; I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“No, no,” he says, not sure how he’s gotten himself into this position. He might not even feel something for her. He doesn't know if it’s even possible, with the specialized Bear mutagens. Wolves can clearly fall in love, and likely the other Schools too, but the Bear mutagens actually do dull emotions like the rumors claim. “Nothing to do. I need to bathe before dinner, but my afternoon is free.”

“Wonderful!” Nedda’s face brightens like he’s just saved a whole village. “Would you mind if I were to eat with you? I think I’ve already missed the usual dining hour for the servants.”

“If you want,” he says. “The table will be full of Witchers. We don’t talk much.”

“I’m well aware, but I appreciate your concern.” She laughs. “If I was wary of taciturn Witchers I wouldn’t be talking to you, would I? And I certainly wouldn’t be in Kaer Morhen.”

“Guess not.”

So she eats dinner with them. Desmon gets odd looks from his brothers but nothing else; not even conversation. The other tables are riotous with shouts and laughter, all except the table of the Bears. Nedda follows suit and doesn’t talk during dinner. It’s… Well, it maybe makes Desmon feel something deep inside, but he’s not sure what. It might be disappointment. It might be excitement.

Nedda walks the human-safe trail beside him with firm footsteps. She starts to pant after a little bit, but this part of the hike is uphill and she’s only human, after all. As if to ward off silence, she keeps up a stream of dialogue that he quickly realizes he’s not expected to engage in. He had thought, when she first opened her mouth, that her endless speech would be annoying. It’s not.

She only stops talking when they get to the stream. It’s wider than usual for this time of the year and the stones that usually carry people across are slick with water, some submerged. Desmon’s not quite sure what to do. If he slips from the rocks, he’ll be able to sort himself out before the river carries him away. Nedda, though, doesn’t seem like she’d be able to. He doesn’t even know if she can swim.

“I can make it across,” Nedda says confidently, and hops onto the first stone.

Some sort of unfamiliar tension swamps Desmon, and he watches with held breath as Nedda approaches the halfway point where the current is strongest. But her foot slips when she lands, having to have skipped a submerged stone, and she topples into the water with a sharp gasp.

He’s in the water before he’s conscious of moving, her name on his lips. She’s fully submerged for a moment before reappearing a bit further downstream. The river is doing a good job at sweeping her coughing, flailing form away, which is absolutely not what Desmon had wanted. Bears are not, as a rule, built for swimming. They’re too heavy. But he’s not incapable of swimming, and he makes it to her before she drifts too much farther. She clings desperately to him when he reaches her, her arms coming up to wrap around his neck and her legs wrapping around his waist. The amount of weight added is startling; he’d known that skirts got heavy when wet, but he hadn’t known just how heavy.

“Oh gods,” she gasps. Her soaking wet hair has plastered itself to her face, obscuring most of it from view. He can still see one eye, though, wide with shock. She smells of fear, but the scent is quickly waning to be replaced by something far warmer. “Perhaps that wasn’t my smartest decision.”

“It wasn’t,” he says shortly, not a fan of the way his chest is tight. She’s started to shiver against him, little trembles that he can feel too acutely. “Let’s go back to the keep.”

“The water in the mountains is so cold,” she notes breathlessly.

He carries her out of the water and back to the path before setting her down with as much care as possible. Her arms are the last things to go, sliding gently from his neck, and he’s not sure whether he loves or hates the faint churning sensation deep in his gut. Is he… What’s happening to him?

They wring themselves out as best they can, Nedda drawing an impressive amount of water from her skirt, before they make to head home. Yet they’ve barely gotten more than a step before Nedda makes a stifled noise of pain and the scent of her sharpens.

“What is it?” he asks.

“My ankle,” she sighs. “I must’ve twisted it when I fell, but it hurts to put weight on it.”

“I’ll carry you,” he suggests.

“Will you?” She laughs as she combs her wet hair from her face. Although she’s wrung that out, too, it’s still dripping. “Thank you very much, Sir Desmon.”

He grumbles discontentedly even as he swoops her up into a bridal-style hold, the fabric of her dress hanging heavy. She laughs at his obvious distaste for a title and winds her arms around his neck again. Her heartbeat picks up with the movement, although he doesn’t think she knows that he can sense that.

“Don’t want Marlene yelling at me, is all,” he grumbles.

“Mhmm, I’m sure that’s your only motivation.”

She settles nicely into his arms as they make their way down the trail, smelling curiously of happiness. If he walks slower than necessary, it’s only because he doesn’t want to jar her ankle. Walking too fast might exacerbate her injuries.

“That wasn’t the most productive hike I’ve ever been on,” Nedda comments.

“Probably not,” he says.

“Have you ever done something as foolish?”

“As a trainee.” He doesn’t know where the words come from, why he’s telling her this. “Tried to fight a real bear.”

“What?” she gasps, delighted. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘tried?’”

“I mean I tried. Didn’t work. How I got my first scars.”

She laughs and leans further into him, burying her face in his neck to stifle her giggles. “Oh my gods, Desmon. Did you have the sense to remove yourself from the situation?”

“No. Older trainee fought it off.”

“Well,” she says, sobering. “I’m glad he did. The world is a nicer place with you in it.”

He stares at her, puzzled beyond speech. She can’t possibly mean that. Sure, she seems to like him, and sure he’s killed plenty of monsters in his time, but nothing would happen if he were to embark on a hunt and not return. The world would go on as it always has, as it always will. She’d bake and go on hikes and make friends with other servants and forget about him. It’s just… what would happen.

“What?” she asks, her brows drawing together. “Do you not believe that?”

“‘Course I don’t,” he grunts, looking away.

She leans her head against his shoulder, smelling sad all of a sudden. Desmon doesn’t like it; she should always smell happy. Humans smell terrible when they’re sad.

“You should,” she whispers. “I’d miss you. So would your brothers.”

He shakes his head. “The rumors about mutagens muting emotions...they’re true. For the Bears. They wouldn’t miss me.”

“Maybe they wouldn’t be as upset as the members of other Schools upon losing one of their own, but they wouldn’t be entirely unaffected,” Nedda argues. “They’d at least be a little disappointed, don’t you think?”

“Guess so.”

He doesn't know what to think about her, this funny little human who says she’d miss him if he died. She hasn’t known him for very long at all; how could she possibly miss him? It has to be a lie, but Desmon can’t smell it on her.

They don’t talk again. Nedda seems content to rest her head against his chest and let him carry her all the way to the infirmary. They get funny looks in the hallway, but he just glares and the looks are suddenly no longer a problem.

“What’d you do, fall into a river?” they’re asked upon their arrival.

“Exactly that, yes,” Nedda says cheerfully. “Desmon was kind enough to jump in after me, since wet skirts are awfully heavy.”

He’s reluctant to leave her there. He doesn’t know why.

And even after she almost drowned in his company, she keeps approaching him. Her presence becomes more frequent at the Bear table, her warmth by his side, and she keeps watching him train with bright eyes on her days off. He doesn’t know what to do with it.

“She likes you!” Jovan cackles one evening in the baths.

“Why?” Desmon asks. “With the Bear mutagens…”

“You can’t help liking someone.” Jovan shrugs and gestures to where the Wolf and his consort are once again canoodling in a lower bath. “I mean, do you think they planned that?”

“No,” he says. “But—”

“But nothing. It doesn’t have to be a romantic relationship if you don’t want that, you know. We’re also allowed to say no to things. Do you find her attractive?”

Desmon will only admit under threat of death that he’s thought about setting his hands on her bare hips. He scowls instead.

“So why not just go for a sexual relationship?” Jovan asks, correctly interpreting his silence as a yes. The bastard. “I mean, Gweld and Serrit go at it like rabbits but that doesn’t mean they love each other. Gweld loves Serrit, sure, but we all know that Serrit would rather stab himself than do anything romantic with _anyone.”_

“She’d have to initiate it,” he says.

“Yeah, no shit. Just think about what you want, and when she approaches you, work together to figure out what your relationship is going to be like.”

Desmon sinks beneath the surface of the water and tries to forget the way she’d clung to him in the river. He doesn’t want to talk about it.

It takes another month and a half for her to talk about it. The talk of the keep—for a strangely long while, now, considering how short the lifespan of gossip at Kaer Morhen tends to be—is the addition of Eskel to the relationship between the Wolf and his consort. Even the Bears have been talking about it, as much as they talk about anything ever.

“Isn’t it romantic?” Nedda sighs. They’re back on the trail again, the water having returned to its normal, human-safe levels. The stream has been cleared and left behind them with no issues. It’s just a little past the peak of summer, but the height of the mountains prevents it from getting too warm. Nedda’s hair is held back in a braid she’s never worn before as they wander beneath the full canopies.

“Hmm,” Desmon agrees.

“I suppose—Well, I wanted to ask—” She’s stopped on the path, strong hands twisted together. When he looks back at her, her lip is pinched between her teeth. She looks and smells...hopeful? Nervous?

“Yes?” he asks.

“Would you want to...engage...with me, in that way?”

Ah, here it is. The Conversation.

“What way?” he manages to ask, remembering Jovan’s advice. “Sexually?”

“That...would be enjoyable,” she says. She reeks of embarrassment, if it wasn’t obvious from the way her face flushes brightly. “Perhaps romantically, as well?”

Fuck. How does he say this? How does he explain that he does—Well, he likes her. Genuinely, he does, better than anyone he’s ever met. But he’s a Bear, and what he feels for her is probably just a pale shade of friendship. The thought of kissing her is appealing, but the thought of having something like the Wolf and his consort and Eskel do is completely foreign to him. There’s no yearning for it.

“The mutagens,” he says. His voice is strangely rough. “They… I don’t know if you want me. Like that. You might at first, but I can’t give back.”

“I’ve got enough giving for the both of us,” Nedda says, whispering like it’s a secret. Her mouth is upturned, at the least. He hasn’t upset her yet, even if she smells a little sad. “But if you don’t feel comfortable being with me, that’s fine. I won’t hold it against you, and will gladly continue to be no more than your friend.”

 _We’re friends?_ he wants to ask. He doesn’t; he’s not stupid.

“I’m—Sexually. That’s fine. But I don’t love like you do.”

“That’s quite alright. So we...we can sleep together. And I can feel how I’d like towards you, and you can feel how you’d like towards me, and we can be—We can be each other’s people. Does that work?”

He quite likes the thought of being someone’s person in the way that some Witchers have established a connection. Gweld and Serrit are each other’s people. So too are Auckes and Zofia, and Cedric and Axel. He doesn’t know if they love each other, but they sleep together and enjoy each other’s company and their names are practically hyphenated. Maybe that’s enough for two people to have.

“Yeah,” he says. “That works.”

Nedda exhales a breathless laugh, relief and joy flooding the air around her. It’s a heady scent. If all he can do is make her smell like that, if all he can do is make her eyes shine like a moonlit lake, he thinks it could be enough.

She brushes her fingers against his hand as they keep walking. He takes it. Her hand is so small in his, even though she’s on the bigger and stronger side for a woman, and he thanks whatever gods may be listening that she’s not nearly as small as Lady Milena. He doesn’t know how Lambert does it. Isn’t he always afraid of breaking her? How much must he love her to suffer through so much fear? Desmon would say it’s unfathomable, but he’s about to do something similar.

Huh. Funny, that.

Nedda smells of sweet-honey happiness through the rest of the hike and even when they part ways upon their return to the keep, Nedda pulled away for some baker business. He meets Jovan in passing in the hallways, and the Cat barks out a sharp piel of laughter.

“She asked, didn’t she?”

“How can you tell?” It’s not like she’d kissed his cheek and left a lipstick stain, or anything. Did he smell residually of her happiness?

“You’re smiling,” Jovan says.

“What?” Desmon raises a hand to his mouth and finds that his lips are, in fact, pulled up at the corners. It’s an unusual position for them to be in, but it’s not unpleasant at all.

“I’m happy for you,” Jovan says. “Genuinely, I am. And if you ever need help with anything, I’m sure Lambert and Auckes would be glad to offer advice.”

Nedda joins the Bear table at supper with a wide smile on her face. He had expected a greater change in her scent now that they’re—fucking? Dating? He’s not sure what to call it—but she smells just as sweet and pleased as always as she settles herself between Desmon and Gerd. Henryk looks across the table at him as Nedda presses herself closer to his side. Desmon scowls, and Henryk backs off.

“Would it be untoward of me to ask if I could, ah, accompany you after supper?” Nedda asks as the bard swirls through the hall, _Ode to Witchers_ on his lute. Desmon can barely hear Nedda over all the ruckus; it’s a good song, and even some of the Bears are singing along.

He leans in so she can hear him when he speaks. “Not at all.”

She thrills, her scent tinting with lust. It’s far from unpleasant and he thinks, maybe, that he understands why Eskel and the Wolf so love to keep their noses into their bard’s neck. When Nedda smells like that, tucked against his side, it’s hard to restrain himself.

Her hand, gentle in his, leads him from the hall as the bard shifts over to dancing music. They make their way quietly through the corridors of Kaer Morhen, some fragile thing hanging in the stillness between them. If he speaks, will he break it? Likely so. He stays quiet, takes the lead and guides her to his rooms.

She turns to him when she steps inside, eyes glittering. There’s a calmness within her, but her arousal is growing stronger. And really, what is he to do but step in and kiss her? She raises herself up on her toes, arms winding around his neck like they did in the river, and sinks into his embrace. Her mouth tastes like supper, like ale and venison. He kisses her just a little harder.

When she makes a soft little sound against his mouth and presses herself closer, what is there to do but reciprocate? He’s got a pretty woman in his rooms, a woman who loves him, and her fingers are flirting with the buckles of his armor.

“Would you mind taking that off?” she asks.

So he unbuckles his armor and pulls it off, lets Nedda take it from him and set it aside until she can nearly place her hands on his bare chest. Her cheeks are pinkening, and she gnaws on her lip again as she tugs gently on his shirt. He leans down and takes her mouth again, pulling her lip into his mouth to soothe the sting of teeth away. She sighs and nearly melts into him, and—and he thinks he might be smiling again, just faintly.

“Would you take me to bed?” she breathes into his mouth as they separate at last, her chest heaving. He wants her dress and all her layers gone.

“Gladly,” he rasps.

Her layers slide easily away, and Nedda’s gentle fingers make quick work of his own, and then they’re both bare to each other. Nedda runs her fingertips over his stretch marks, only so numerous among Bears, and he finally settles his hands on the curve of her naked, delicately stretch-marked waist. She shivers under his touch.

“It’s quite cold in Kaer Morhen.” She smiles up at him, fearless, and presses herself fully to his front. He swears his brain stops working at the sensation of all that skin-on-skin contact. Even thinking about it, he doesn’t know when the last time anyone really touched him was. “Would you mind warming me up?”

He hoists her up in lieu of an answer, and she giggles as she wraps her legs around his waist in an obscene recreation of their position in the river. It’s nothing short of delightful.

So too is the event itself, and the sweaty-glowy aftermath. He lays on his back, her on her left side curled into him with a leg slung over his. Neither of them have made an effort to cover themselves, and why bother? They’ve seen enough of each other anyways. Her breaths puff hot against his chest, and his hair has come loose from its knot to fall around his shoulders rather like hers.

“That was wonderful,” she breathes.

“Mmm, yeah,” he agrees. Witchers have an incredible amount of stamina, Bears moreso. Nedda, it seems, can match. For the first time in a long time he genuinely feels tired after sex. It’s an enjoyable sensation.

She falls silent again, and Desmon is just beginning to slide into sleep when she gasps and pushes herself up to a sitting position. He can see her scar better this way, a little thing that he’d noticed on her left side. It actually extends to her back in a large, painful-looking splotch of twisted, shiny skin.

“What?” he asks, disoriented, following her gaze to the little set of shelves in his room. He hasn’t really looked at any of the things on it in a long time, not since soon after moving into Kaer Morhen.

“It’s—” She bursts into loud laughter, collapsing back against him and unable to articulate herself through her mirth. “Oh my goodness, it was you!”

“What?” he asks again.

“About twenty years ago, now, you killed six archgriffins.”

Now that she brings it up, he remembers that hunt. It had been a bitch, and he’d been underpaid, but the healer had gotten him new armor after—

“You’re the healer’s daughter?” he asks, suddenly wide awake again. “The girl who gave me the bear?”

She nods, still laughing and draped over his chest.

“That’s—”

Funny, actually. Desmon feels amused.

“How fortunate,” she says, calming from her fit and raising a work-roughened hand to cup his cheek. Her eyes are brilliantly gray, set into the olive of her skin and contrasting with the midnight-black of her hair. “You’ve saved my life twice, now.”

“You wouldn’t have drowned in the river,” he says. “Probably.”

“Probably,” she mutters in a bad imitation of him, but she’s smiling. “We don’t know, do we? I like to think I would’ve died and you swooped in to save me yet again.”

He wraps an arm around her to pull her closer, and her head is right there, so he presses a kiss to the top of it. “Just don’t make a habit of it,” he says. He’s fairly confident that the stirring in his chest is fondness. “I like you alive.”

She’s gone when he wakes up, off to do whatever the bakers here actually do, but he doesn’t mind. He’ll see her again shortly.

The next time she has a day off, she joins him at the end of his afternoon training and—completely fucking fearlessly—joins the Witchers in the baths. Jovan grapes at him from across the pool. To his credit, he recovers quickly and offers Nedda an, “It’s lovely to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

They’re interrupted by a scuffle in the next pool over. It’s a quick scuffle, but it ends with the consort being bodily tossed into the next pool down. Their pool. The consort squawks with very little dignity, flailing about before Einri takes the liberty of grabbing his arm and hauling him upright.

 _“Thank_ you,” Jaskier says, pushing his hair out of his face. “That was very polite of you.” He turns back to the pool from which he had just been ejected. “I am staying in this pool, because in this pool they don’t try to drown innocent bards!”

“You’ve never been innocent a day in your life, Buttercup,” Lambert calls back.

Jaskier throws himself down between Einri and Nedda with a sigh. It takes him a good three seconds to realize that there’s a human woman in the pool, at which point he sits up and offers a hasty greeting.

“Hello,” Nedda replies through a curtain of giggles. “Do you often find yourself tossed out of pools?”

“Not frequently, but too often for my liking.” He leans against the side of the pool with an easy smile. If it were anyone else, Desmond might be worried, but Jaskier is thoroughly (and happily) taken and everyone in the keep knows it. “I don’t believe we’ve met before.”

“I’m Nedda,” she says. “I work with Marlene.”

“Ah, Marlene!” Jaskier sighs happily. “What a woman.” His eyes crinkle at the corners when they rest upon Desmon. “Have you gone and gotten yourself a Witcher paramour, dear? Excellent choice, if I do say so myself.”

Nedda is warm and happy against his side and Desmon’s wondering what he ever had against Jaskier. He’s a good man, charming and suave and not looking below her chin. Maybe the Wolf chose wisely with this one.

“It’s new,” she says, sounding a little shy. “But it’s lovely.”

He cocks his head and peers at her. Desmon feels his hackles raise. But all Jaskier says is, _“You’re_ fairly new, aren’t you?” and so Desmon is spared from having to take physical action towards the second most-protected person in all of Kaer Morhen.

“I am,” Nedda says.

“So how’d it happen?” Jaskier asks, leaning forward. His eyes spark with interest. “It took me and Geralt a year of dancing around each other.”

Nedda lights up like she’s been waiting for someone to ask her and starts at the beginning. Not her arriving at Kaer Morhen, though; she starts at the very beginning, in a crevice in a cave. Desmon doesn’t know what, exactly, is going on in Jaskier’s head, but by the end of the story his eyes are wide and he looks absolutely delighted.

“I beg of you, fine lady, to let me write this.”

“Write like—like a song?”

“Absolutely. Oh, the ballads I could craft!”

Nedda turns in Desmon’s arm to look up at him. The water is warm and the air is hazy with steam and her hair is slicked to her skin, and she’s the most wonderful sight he’s ever seen. What else is there for him to do but shrug?

“Don’t care,” he says.

“I, for one, would be delighted,” Nedda tells Jaskier.

His face splits into an absurdly large smile and he presses a great, smacking kiss to her forehead before leaping out of the pool with a shout of, “Geralt, Geralt, where has my little board gone! I have an abundance of lyrics and nowhere to put them!”

Nedda leans into his side and giggles at the sight of Jaskier cannonballing into the pool nearly directly on top of the Warlord without a care in the world. The Wolf just laughs, showing white teeth that look a little like real fangs, and hands Jaskier a small board before pulling him under his arm. It’s the same exact position that Desmon and Nedda are in.

He finds he doesn’t mind.

And when Jaskier debuts _Ursa_ a week later… Well. Nedda smells so happy that he can’t bring himself to mind the song, either.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no self control and wrote this in like three days when I should've been doing homework or working on the several other fics I have in the works. But someone submitted an ask to inexplicific's wonderful tumblr throwing out the idea of a Bear Witcher being gifted a stuffed bear by a grateful child and my brain short-circuited. Also, I'm a slut for any excuse to make a remotely aromantic character and the Bears serve me very well. Drop a kudos or comment if you enjoyed! College in the age of COVID is, uh,,,,, not the funnest.


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